Two Girls in Samangan Raped, Beheaded by Taliban Fighters, Reports

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8am: Sources confirmed to Hasht-e Subh on Saturday that two bodyguards of the Taliban governor for Roy Doab district, Mullah Shamshad, raped these two girls a week ago in Surkh Qala village of the same vicinity and then beheaded them in front of their families. According to locals, after his bodyguards raped these girls, Mullah Shamshad showed up on the scene and ordered his men to execute the victims immediately on charges of adultery. Meanwhile, according to reports, the Taliban are harassing families in the northern parts of Afghanistan to have their daughters persuaded to marry Taliban members. Click here to read more (external link).

Afghanistan’s Taliban Rulers Order NGOs To Prevent Women From Working At Their Jobs As Protests Spread

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 24, 2022

In the latest assault on women’s rights, Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers ordered all domestic and international NGOs to prevent female employees from working at their jobs, claiming that many were not observing dress codes in the conservative Muslim nation.

“There have been serious complaints regarding the nonobservance of the Islamic hijab and other rules and regulations pertaining to the work of females in national and international organizations,” the Islamist group’s economy ministry said on December 24 in a note sent to NGOs and seen by AFP and other Western news agencies.

AP reported that the note said that any organization which did not comply with the order would have its license to operate in the country revoked.

Full details of the order were not immediately available, and it was not clear how it would affect the various United Nations agencies operating in Afghanistan.

The reports come as rare protests continued to erupt in parts of Afghanistan following the Taliban decision announced on December 20 to forbid women from universities, drawing condemnation from the international community and the UN.

Taliban security forces have used violence and arrested several people as they have dispersed protests by Afghan women against the ruling.

On December 24, dozens of women and girls protested in the western city of Herat before they were stopped by security forces, according to video posted on social media.

AP said it observed video showing women yelling and running for cover to avoid water cannons before returning to the main street to continue their protest.

VOA quoted a local Taliban official as saying that security forces blocked protesters from reaching buildings housing the provincial government.

On December 22, a group of some 50 women dressed in hijabs, some wearing masks, gathered in the capital, Kabul, for a protest march against the move before they were attacked and dispersed by Taliban security forces, participants and witnesses told RFE/RL.

Several hundred medical students — both male and female — protested against the measure at Nangarhar University’s medical school in eastern Afghanistan on December 21.

Some of the female students, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals by the Talban, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that their end-of-semester exams were supposed to begin on December 22, but following the announcement, they were barred from taking the exams.

In a rare display of solidarity, some male students joined the protest and refused to take part in the exams as well.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has urged the Taliban rulers to revoke the decision to ban female students from universities.

UNAMA warned that preventing women from “contributing meaningfully to society and the economy will have a devastating impact on the whole country,” and bring more international isolation and economic hardship to a country already on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier said he was “deeply alarmed” by the Taliban decision, labeling it another “broken promise” by the group — which vowed to protect women’s rights when it took power.

Since the Taliban seized power in August of last year, Western officials and activists, along with some inside Afghanistan, have expressed concerns about women’s rights under the extreme conservative rule of the Islamist Taliban leadership. The Taliban rulers have not been officially recognized as the country’s government by the international community.

Women’s rights were severely restricted during the Taliban’s first stint in power until they were driven from government by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, AFP, and AP

Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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Hekmatyar to UN: Leave Afghanistan’s seat empty if not given to Taliban

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Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Ariana: IEA [Taliban] last year nominated their current head of their political office in Qatar, Suhail Shaheen, as Afghanistan’s UN ambassador, but the seat is still held by Naseer Ahmad Fayeq, representative of the previous Afghan government. “If the United Nations couldn’t hand over the seat to the current government, could it not let it be empty,” Hekmatyar said in his weekly Friday sermon. He said that Fayeq represents only himself. Click here to read more (external link).

Al-Azhar Imam: Ban on Women’s Education Contradicts Sharia

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Tolo News: The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb on Thursday said that he “deeply” regrets the decision issued by the authorities in Afghanistan, preventing Afghan women’s access to university education and adding that it contradicts Islamic Sharia and conflicts with its explicit call for men and women to pursue knowledge from the cradle to the grave. Tayeb said he warns “Muslims and non-Muslims against believing or accepting the allegation that it banning women’s education is approved in Islam.” Click here to read more (external link).

Canada Reviews Counterterror Laws to Aid Taliban-Run Afghanistan

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Akmal Dawi
VOA News
December 22, 2022

The Canadian government might have a lot of disagreements with the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan but it is reviewing Canada’s counterterrorism laws to find ways to help people under Taliban rule.

Canada has designated the Taliban a terrorist entity, prohibiting Canadian citizens and organizations from all transactions with Taliban individuals, processes and institutions.

More than a dozen Canadian non-governmental organizations have called on Ottawa to carve out humanitarian exceptions for them, so they can continue to operate in Afghanistan.

“Canadian humanitarian and development agencies have operated in Afghanistan for decades and must be allowed to continue carrying out essential operations,” the NGOs said in an open letter.

Canada pledged $143 million to the U.N. system to fund humanitarian operations for Afghans inside and outside Afghanistan. A major donor to Afghanistan, Canada spent more than $3.8 billion on development and humanitarian activities in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2021, but immediately stopped all development assistance after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

“Departments from across the government of Canada are seized with this issue and are working to identify a solution that upholds Canada’s national security interests, while facilitating the effective delivery of assistance to the Afghan people in this unprecedented situation,” Genevieve Tremblay, a spokesperson for Canada’s International Development Agency, told VOA.

Ottawa is not interested in taking the Taliban off its terrorism list. The action is rather prompted by calls from aid agencies for an urgent response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

“Canada remains deeply concerned about the continuing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and we will continue to do all that we can to support the Afghan people,” said Tremblay.

On Tuesday, U.N. emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths told the Security Council that 97% of the people in Afghanistan live in poverty and two-thirds need urgent humanitarian assistance for survival.

“We face a daunting financial challenge as we enter 2023. We need $4.6 billion to adequately address the country’s humanitarian needs,” Griffiths said.

Feminist policy

In addition to its terrorism-related legal restrictions, Canada’s feminist international development policy also appears at odds with a Taliban-run Afghanistan, where women have been deprived of education, work and many other freedoms.

This week the Taliban closed all private and public universities to women, a move globally condemned as misogynistic.

Aid workers say the Taliban also interfere with and restrict humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, particularly for women.

“Female humanitarian workers face harassment, intimidation and mistreatment on a daily basis,” the U.N. reported in September.

Canada has prioritized women in its Feminist International Assistance Policy and requires its funded partners to integrate gender-based programming into all their programs.

“These decisions were made very strategically,” Paras told VOA “to empower women around the world but also to trademark Canada’s identity as a donor.”

US example

This week, the U.S. government announced it is relaxing some sanctions on the Taliban to help aid agencies deliver essential humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

“Today we are making an important update to U.S. sanctions. Our updated general licenses across U.S. sanctions programs will make it easier to deliver life-saving aid to those in need while ensuring sanctions target those threatening peace, security, and stability,” Antony Blinken, U.S. secretary of state, tweeted on Tuesday.

The U.S. has committed over $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan over the last year, making Washington the top donor to the famine-hit country.

While commending U.S. funding, aid agencies say Washington’s strict economic sanctions have inhibited humanitarian response operations and have exacerbated economic hardships for many Afghans.

The U.S. humanitarian waivers will encourage Canada to ease its own sanctions and allow Canadian aid to reach needy Afghans, Paras said.

“We in Canada tag along with our bigger cousin across the border,” she said.

Taliban Violently Disperses Women’s Protest Against University Ban

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RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
December 22, 2022

Taliban security forces have used violence and arrested several people as they dispersed a protest by Afghan women against a ruling that bans female students from universities.

Afghanistan’s Taliban announced the decision to forbid women from universities late on December 20 in a letter from the Islamist group’s education ministry to higher education institutions, drawing immediate condemnation from the international community and the United Nations.

A group of some 50 women dressed in hijabs, some wearing masks, gathered in the capital, Kabul, on December 22 for a peaceful protest march against the move, chanting slogans against the ban, but were attacked and dispersed by Taliban security forces, participants and witnesses told RFE/RL.

The participants intended to gather outside Kabul University, Afghanistan’s largest and most prestigious higher education institution, but switched to a different location after a large number of security forces members were deployed there.

One of the women who attended the march, Basira, told RFE/RL that security forces beat some of the participants and took them away, while others managed to escape. A number of journalists covering the protest have been reportedly detained, too.

Another participant, Shahla Arefi, told RFE/RL that plainclothes female members of the security forces had infiltrated the march and immobilized some protesters who attempted to run when armed Taliban men appeared.

Taliban authorities have not commented on the incident.

On December 22, Turkey and Saudi Arabia became the latest Muslim-majority countries to blast the Taliban authorities’ move.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at a news conference with his Yemeni counterpart, said that the ban was “neither Islamic nor humane” and called on the Taliban to reverse the move.

The Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia, a country that until recently had also enforced sweeping restrictions on women’s rights but has now begun to allow them more liberty, voiced “astonishment and regret” at the Taliban’s decision.

The ministry said the move was “astonishing in all Islamic countries.”

On December 21, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan urged the Taliban authorities to immediately revoke the decision.

Qatar, which has maintained contact with the Taliban authorities, also condemned the decision.

Inside Afghanistan, where cricket is a hugely popular sport, several cricketers have also condemned the move, while some male students at the medical school of Nangarhar University, in eastern Afghanistan, refused to sit exams on December 21 in solidarity with their banned female colleagues.

In neighboring Pakistan, students at Peshawar University in the northwest of the country staged a peaceful demonstration in support of the Afghan girls’ right to higher education, urging the Taliban to reverse the ban.

With reporting by AP and AFP

Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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